For anyone who is looking to expand their own family, adoption can be an amazing way to achieve this goal. However, this process can be a difficult and long process. Due to this fact, it is important to have the best team by your side in order to lend a helping hand throughout this challenging process. This is exactly what our team here at Granholm & Gynac in Joliet strives to help you achieve. Our team of lawyers and experts in this field have experience in facilitating a plethora of different adoptions. These specific adoptions include but are not limited to:
Private adoptions, agency adoptions, related adoptions, and contested adoptions. In this article, we will be going over the details of each of these specific types of adoptions as well as the means and actions involved in this entire process. To learn more about this process, continue reading below.
What Are Private Adoptions?
Private adoptions are adoptions where the biological parents give their child directly to the chosen adoptive parents. In this process, custody is transferred directly between the parents and is not done through an agency. This is one of the adoption processes in which the birth parents directly select the adoptive parents.
What Are Agency Adoptions?
When it comes to agency adoptions, this process is handled through a licensed agency that simply acts as the middleman between the birth parents and the adoptive parents. However, both the adoptive parents and the birth parents will be able to meet each other in order to get to know each other before the transfer begins. For birth parents who are looking to work with an agency for their adoption process, they must be willing to give up their rights as parents to this agency.
What Are Related Adoptions?
A related adoption is an adoption where an immediate relative, such as a grandparent, sibling, stepparent, etc. adopts a child. On the occasion that this child loves with the family for over one full year, then this process can be referred to as a kinship adoption.
What Are Contested Adoptions?
In the case of a contested adoption, one biological parent wants to place the infant up for adoption while the other does not. Needless to say, this adoption process can get to be a bit more challenging. In order to win a contested adoption case, it will need to be proved that the contesting party is in fact an unfit parent. However, proving that a birth parent such as the mother or biological father is unfit to be a parent is a difficult case to win. If this case is won, then the birth parents will legally be stripped of their parental rights.
Adoptions in the State of Illinois
When it comes to the requirements of adopting a child in Illinois, the individual who is looking to adopt a child must be able to meet each of the following qualifications:
- The person who is looking to adopt must not have a legal disability.
- The person who is looking to adopt in the state of Illinois must have lived in Illinois for no less than six months before looking to adopt.
- The person looking to adopt must have a positive reputation within the community of Illinois
- The person seeking to adopt must be at least 18 years of age
For anyone that has found themselves wondering how long the adoption process in Illinois typically takes, the average processing times takes about six months. Of course, this does typically depend on the agency. Our team will file the appropriate petition for adoption with the courts, provide representation at all court hearings, complete the paperwork to revise the child’s birth certificate, and advocate for you along the way should any complications arise. We also pride ourselves on making sure our clients understand everything that’s happening in their case as it progresses.
If you find that you are in fact ready to move forward in any of these areas, feel free to visit our website to learn more about our team. Here, you can contact us through the contact section of our website. You can also give us a call at the number listed on our site for quicker and more direct service.
The Granholm & Gynac team stands ready to provide competent, professional counsel for you in all of our practice areas. We also hope to build long-term client relationships with our clients, so that they never hesitate to come back to us in the future and feel confident referring us to family and friends.
